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Stormy round at Players for Tiger and Sergio

Third round suspended due to darkness

Associated Press

Posted:
05/11/2013 10:46:13 PM MDT

Updated:
05/11/2013 10:46:31 PM MDT

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. -- A rift between Tiger Woods and Sergio Garcia attracted all the attention on a stormy day at Sawgrass. Swedish rookie David Lingmerth quietly went about his business and wound up atop the leaderboard Saturday in The Players Championship.

Lingmerth finished a wild day with an 8-foot eagle putt on the par-5 16th and a 10-foot birdie on the island-green 17th to reach 12-under par when the third round was suspended because of darkness. It was delayed nearly two hours because of threatening storms.

Woods, Garcia and Henrik Stenson -- all former Players champions -- were two shots behind. Eight players had to return Sunday morning to complete the round.

The Woods-Garcia relationship already was frosty, and an incident on the par-5 second hole was sure to add another layer of chill.

Garcia was hitting his second shot from the fairway when he was disrupted by a burst of cheers from the large crowd gathered around Woods in the trees. Garcia snapped his head over to the left and glared.

The cheer was for Woods taking a fairway metal from his bag, a risky shot because he had only a 15-foot gap to escape the woods.

During the storm delay, Garcia suggested in a television interview that Woods was the instigator.

"Well, obviously Tiger was on the left and it was my shot to hit," Garcia said. "He moved all of the crowd that he needed to move. I waited for that.

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I wouldn't say that he didn't see that I was ready, but you do have a feel when the other guy is going to hit and right as I was in the top of the backswing, I think he must have pulled like a 5-wood or a 3-wood and obviously everybody started screaming. So that didn't help very much."

Woods was aware of the comments and said Garcia didn't have his facts straight.

"The marshals, they told me he already hit, so I pulled a club and was getting ready to play my shot," Woods said. "And then I hear his comments afterwards, and not real surprising that he's complaining about something."

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